San Francisco Marriott Marquis Shares Unfortunate Date with Disaster

Many people have memories of Oct. 17, 1989, the day of the Loma Prieta earthquake. NBC Bay Area’s Joe Rosato Jr. visited a San Francisco hotel that shared an unfortunate date with disaster. (Published Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014)

Before it opened, the glassy tower of luxury had already garnered quite a bit of unusual hype. Columnist Herb Caen disdainfully dubbed it the “juke box” because of its… well... because it looked like a big jukebox rising over Mission and 4th. Caen claimed the glare from its glassy windows blinded him at his desk a block away in the Chronicle building.

The hotel also got plenty of pre-opening press when a wild fox took up a year-long residency at the construction site, dodging his pursuers until a week before the hotel’s ballyhooed opening.

The Marriott Marquis at 4th and Mission which the late Herb Caen once dubbed "the jukebox."
Photo credit: Joe Rosato Jr.

And, about that opening, the infamous date arrived like a 6.9 temblor.

“Opened up first thing in the morning,” engineer Steve Baxter said. “Had a ceremony and then a very quick closing.”

After a morning ribbon-cutting, and a day of the first guests, the hotel shook violently along with the rest of the Bay Area as the Loma Prieta earthquake inflicted its rolling wrath.

Baxter said the tower swayed four feet in each direction, giving its new customers an unwelcome thrill.

Aftermath: The Loma Prieta Earthquake

“So the people in the View Lounge basically got an E-ticket ride on that one,” Baxter said.
Thirty-nine floors down, the kitchen began rippling with the waves of the quake.

“And all of a sudden you feel this rumbling,” executive chef David Hollands said. “I’ll never forget that noise.”

Even after the shaking subsided, Hollands continued to cook because “we’re trained as chefs to just keep cooking through it.” But the evacuation order soon came, and Hollands and the rest of the kitchen crew wound their way into an outside alley, where they were met with a toppling boulder from a nearby building.